Homemade Wolverine Costumes - The Nuts and Bolts

Wolverine costumes! Today, i will be sharing tips on how to make the best Wolverine costumes from scratch. Since i started reading X-men comics, X-men Wolverine has always been one of the more popular characters.

It is my way of giving back for the experience i had gained from trial and errors; hopefully, it will be useful to you especially if you are looking to go down the road making homemade costume and getting your hands dirty.

You probably would need assistance of a tailor or seamstress to help put your design together. I personally believe it is more important to have control on what materials to use, specific details on the costume, etc, to suit to your preference. So always keep an open mind when the experts provide you advice on the feasibility of making custom design costumes especially.

If you do not wish to go through the hassle of the homemade costume path and know what X men costume you want, please feel free to see the range i have in my e-store - click here to proceed to my e-store. Hope that helps!

Do note that this might result in increased frustration, pulling of hair, etc. Just kidding ... So let us proceed!

*Click on thumbnails to enlarge image/view more images in a new window

Step 1: Visualize and Select Wolverine Costumes Design

Before you drill down to one Wolverine costume, it is best to have a few X men Wolverine costumes for you to choose. For now, I would use a couple of Wolverine costumes on offer on my e-store for illustration purposes and to enable you to visualize. I have decided to use the Wolverine Xman from the comics or cartoon and X men movie costume version.

After you have identified a couple of suitable costumes to make, you will need to determine what kind of material to use. As always, do not always take the word of the supplier or seller. Feel the material and make sure that the material is suitable for you.

No matter how expensive the material is, as long as you don't feel good when you touch it then perhaps it is not the right one for you. I always believe in my instinct or sense of feel.

X men Movie Costumes
You will need to take note the kind of image to portray and in this range. You should select the classy black. It is even better if it is slightly glossy, but over reflective which becomes distracting. So you would want to draw attention, but not too much if you know what i mean?

Important tip for making X men movie costumes or Wolverine costumes in this case, please include satin or coating spandex (mentioned slightly below) as the inner lining for the costume.

It would be quite an understatement to say that it would be uncomfortable especially if you are sweating it in or for those with sensitive skin.

For the budget conscious, you can consider using pleather also known as plastic leather instead of cow's leather which can be very expensive depending on the quality.

For the affluent or less budget conscious, you can choose to use cow's leather.

X men Wolverine Cartoon/Comics
For the Wolverine costume in the X men comics and cartoon, let us use the traditional yellow costume that we normally see. There are a few variations such as black and colours are something you can play with definitely. Mixing and matching is all part of the fun and process of making your own homemade costume.

Do note that from my experience with different suppliers, spandex has different meanings. It is loosely used term and so it is possible that suppliers get confused with other similar materials at times (no idea why) and so forth. So when you buy your own spandex, it would be advisable to have a feel of the material before taking it off the rack.

For the budget conscious, you we can use normal spandex which is probably not as comfortable.

For those who are less budget conscious, you can use what we call cosplay spandex also known as coating spandex that gives a smoother feel on the skin. This is especially suitable for those with sensitive skin.

What makes a good costume? Any designer or someone with experience making their own costume would tell you it is all in the details apart from the accessories. Your meticulous attention to the details would say a lot about the person wearing the costume. Below you will see some sample pictures on what i mean by details based on the type of Wolverine costume you intend to make: Cartoon/Comic or the Movie version.

X men Movie Costumes
Using the X-men Wolverine costume from the X men movie, the piping colour on the costume sets him apart from the other X men characters. Some off the top of my head would be red for Jean Grey in X men 2, white for X men Iceman, and so on.

So the most obvious choice would be to use yellow for the X men movie Wolverine costume.

X men Wolverine Cartoon/Comics
Since we are using yellow as the main colour for the spandex, it would make no sense to use yellow again for the details. For this costume, the details are along the side of the costume. You can consider using light blue, black or glossy dark blue, which is quite commonly seen on the Wolverine costume. Of course, do purchase one that is perhaps easier to obtain and putting into consideration the costs as well.

We are done with step 1 to 3, and so on to the last step which i believe is the best part. To complete your Wolverine costume, you will definitely need to choose the right accessories. For example, X men belt buckles and cufflinks are absolutely essential to complete the look.

The most basic for an X men belt buckle or cufflink is the undisputable "X" that has be obvious. Without that "X", it is not an X men belt buckle. If you wish to make one yourself, you can use resin to make the belt buckle (with a mould design of course) and then proceed to spray paint with the colour of your choice.

For most Wolverine costumes, yellow would be the colour of choice but there are exceptions like in the cartoon series when you will see the "X" is painted as red on black background sometimes. Typically black would be used as the background colour to allow the yellow used on the "X" to bring attention to the belt buckle and cufflink.

I personally prefer to have my X men belt buckle using zinc alloy or stainless steel for that sturdier look. Anyway, I'm not here to talk about manufacturing so let's move on.

Do not forget that the both types of Wolverine costumes would require a pair of gloves and perhaps even dog tags as well. Materials used for the gloves should be similar to the material selected above in step 2 for your homemade Wolverine costume - Click here to go to Step 2. Otherwise, it would be a rather obvious mismatch. Let's move on to see what we need for the two different Wolverine costumes used as examples today.

X men Movie Costumes
As the heading above suggests, since your homemade costume to be is based on the X men movies, it is only right that you try to follow close to the movie itself. But of course since it is your homemade costume, you can mix and pick what you want and don't want.

The perks of being the owner of your design or Wolverine costume, below are just some of my suggestions. Take my suggestions with a pinch of salt and use or mix whatever works for your costume.

Below are some pictures for you to take a look at what are some of the accessories you can use.

X men belt buckle i highly recommend is to use the yellow "X" on black background. That is my star pick for sure!

In the X men movies, you would have noticed that Wolverine wears a dog tag almost all the time. So a Wolverine dog tag is a must!

Your Wolverine costume would not be complete without a matching pair of yellow gloves. If you intend to wear claws, be sure that the pair of gloves has holes in between your knuckles. Otherwise, a normal black pair of gloves with yellow piping would look good as well.

Claws! There are so many for sale right now, but it is hard to pick the right ones. You can either make it yourself using resin (you need to get your hands dirty for this), use stainless steel claws which can be rather sharp and dangerous, or the plastic ones that i feel looks quite unreal and unsuitable for this type of costume.

X men Wolverine Cartoon/Comics
For this kind of Wolverine costume, you would also need an X men belt buckle. As mentioned earlier, i prefer to use belt buckle made using stainless steel or zinc alloy. But for this case, probably plastic would suffice. There quite a few plastic X men belt buckles in most online Halloween e-stores, which i have come across a couple of times.

In this case, go for the red "X" on black background. It looks better than having a yellow X men belt buckle on your Wolverine costume, which is already using yellow as its main colour.

A Wolverine dog tag for this kind of costume wouldn't have any major impact on the outfit, so i recommend that you save the money and spend it on other accessories instead.

The colour of your gloves should match the colour used along the side of the costume to go for the complete look. A lot of gloves do come with claws attached to it, so that is something you can consider getting.

As for the claws, i believe the plastic or resin-made claws would look fine. The stainless steel claws might not match very well with this costume.

Two things extra for this costume would be the footwear and mask. If you engage someone experience with making custom designs for cosplay or other superhero costumes, the pair of footwear and mask would normally be part of the costume package.

And you are done! Yes, it is a whole lot of information to go through especially when you have to make your own homemade costume. My advice is don't be a stick in the mud; buy what you need to make your costume work for you. If you can't make your own X men belt buckle or Wolverine claws, then don't.

Learning

The most important thing is that you learn the process of making a custom design or homemade costume and doing your homework to prevent getting what you don't want.

From the knowledge learned, apply it to the costume you can engage someone to assist you in producing it. Be part of the design process and be involved. Lastly, get what you want.

The most affordable and individual effort would be to make the costume from scratch. If you have the relevant skills and have what it takes, then go ahead.

But if you don't, don't feel bad. You are still a smart customer because now you know what you want and how to get there because you know what goes behind the scenes.

Measurements

A smart option would be to purchase the accessories, materials and select a trusted tailor or seamstress to work on your designs. Pass the relevant requirements on what you don't want and what you must have and accurate measurements (they are so important).

I of course would recommend that you approach someone with experience making costumes instead of your normal local tailor or seamstress as they would know what kind of measurements to take,
accessories required, etc.

But if you can't find anyone with that expertise near your location, you should be able to find some cosplay costume makers on the internet offering their services.

Another piece of advice would be to cautious as some do not deliver what they promise. That was something that had occurred to me previously, which is why i started to make my own design and was strongly encouraged by friends to offer my services to others. So if you are interested to make your own custom design or require any advice, you can always contact me - click here to contact me.

The main concern for me then was the communication of the design to the costume maker, so be sure that the company or someone you approach knows exactly what you are trying to convey. I can discuss this topic for a long time and it goes beyond topic, so let me just end that unpleasant experience here. **smiles**